IT’S long been said that George W. Bush is a terrifically likable and charming guy. As someone who has watched his campaign obsessively for 18 months, I’ve been a little mystified by that impression. For while Bush has certainly built one of the most amazing political machines in our time and has enunciated a remarkably substantive and exciting governing agenda, as a candidate he has mostly seemed halting, insecure and arrogant.

No longer. Appearing on Oprah Winfrey’s show yesterday, a week after Al Gore did, Bush came across as – I can’t think of a better word – lovable.

It wasn’t just his heartfelt tribute to his wife Laura’s determination during her toxemic pregnancy that their twins would be born healthy – “These children will come to be,” she told him in what he movingly called a “resolute, powerful statement of motherhood.”

Nor was it just his brief but powerful statement of faith – “I think all of us need forgiveness,” he said in a hushed and powerful tone.

He was funny from beginning to end. No, he said, God did not tap him on the shoulder and say, “Thou shalt be president!”

He told a good joke about a man in church begging the Lord to use him, but after being told he could sand and refinish the pews, asked instead to be used “only in an advisory capacity.” And when Oprah asked him what his greatest dream was, he grinned and raised his hand as though he were being sworn into office come Jan. 20.

“Where did your quick wit come from?” Oprah asked in wonder, surely having swallowed wholesale the Democratic caricature of Bush as a moron.

Bush’s performance was notable in two other, very telling ways – one quite important and admirable, the other kind of disheartening.

Last week, Gore came across as Oprah’s ideal candidate, echoing her patented New Age-speak about spirituality. Bush was having none of that, thank God. Asked about his faith, he spoke not about the gods and goddesses we can all be if we put our minds to it – the central tenet of Oprah-ism – but instead about the fallibility of humanity.

“Yes, well, we’re all responsible for our actions,” Oprah said. No, Bush said: “We should be, but it’s not that way today. There’s a culture of irresponsibility that takes over America at times.” That irresponsibility is the flip side of the victimization chic that Oprah helped popularize in the 1980s with her sob-sister tales of women ill-treated by their boyfriends, husbands, employers and the government.

“Does government have a soul?” she asked him, and he flatly answered, “No. What government ought to do is tap the soul of America by encouraging faith-based institutions.”

In the deepest sense, George Bush yesterday illuminated the truly stark difference between him and Al Gore on the question of values. Gore believes government is the collective soul of America, guiding the country to the right path. Bush, by contrast, put it this way: “We’re going to elevate the individual instead of empowering the government.”

But it was disheartening that Bush couldn’t answer Oprah’s most important question – “What really is the difference you’re going to make?” Rather than rise to the occasion, he reverted to stump-speech junk about how he is a proven leader and about what a great job he’s done in Texas.

Bush’s inability to rise to the rhetorical challenge and speak more grandly about why he wants to be president indicates the current confusion of his campaign. He came across as becomingly modest, but America doesn’t look for modesty when choosing a president. Voters look for someone they can believe in. Bush isn’t quite there yet. But yesterday’s performance reveals that this race isn’t over yet, not by a long shot.E-mail: podhoretz@nypost.com